


Onesie-pon a Time

by LynnLarsh



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Dat Millennial Life Doe, Embarrassment, Fluff, It was so embarrassing guys like for real, Like literally just a fluffy encounter, M/M, Meet-Cute, Titles Puns.... sorry., Tweaked Real Life Experience, there are no excuses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2020-01-05 14:01:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18367469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LynnLarsh/pseuds/LynnLarsh
Summary: Sometimes you just wait too long to do laundry and are stuck having to use a onesie until your clean clothes are done.  And sometimes you get caught in said onesie by the hot neighbor and his adorable little brother.  It happens, okay?  It's not a big deal.





	Onesie-pon a Time

**Author's Note:**

> So I go away for ages and come back with this. I'm so sorry. I have a bunch of stuff I'm working on though, so I should be flooding your inboxes (to all those who've subscribed) very soon, hopefully!
> 
> Thank you to anyone who still cares about my boys post S8. I chose to love it for what it was and ignore the hate, but I know many chose the opposite. So if you're still with me, here's some tooth rotting fluff. We've earned it. Enjoy!
> 
> (Also yes, a variation on this actually happened to me a few weeks ago... It wasn't nearly as happy an ending as this one.)

A dollar fifty in quarters goes into the slots, Keith forces the tray into the machine, and his laundry starts rumbling, spinning, knocking about in whatever process manages to get the remnants of the garage off his clothes.

Three dollars seems like highway robbery for a single load, but he can’t really complain. Even if asking a millenial to acquire quarters in this day and age _is_ borderline sadistic. Keith doesn’t even know where the nearest bank is let alone wants to risk his socially awkward ass on a conversation about five dollar bill to coin exchange. He’s gotta do laundry though, so the point is moot.

Doesn’t mean he’s gonna be prompt about it.

Today was about as long as he could push it, the laundry piling up to a point where even he was starting to feel grossed out. So, even though he hates making the trek out to the communal laundry at the center of his complex, he admits defeat and packs his hamper.

Of course, not doing laundry for three weeks means he has little option beyond boxers, his old judo uniform, and a dragon onesie to wear in the meantime (a gag gift from Shiro during his twenty-first birthday camping trip a few years ago). And while the judo uniform would have been easier to lie away, somehow (in a fit of idiocy, maybe) he’d decided on the onesie. It was quick, lacked any under garment necessities, and it wasn’t like anyone was going to see him, right? Right.

Still doesn’t mean Keith isn’t frantically looking over his shoulder at the window next to the laundry room door, waiting the entire loading process for someone to stumble in with a camera crew and a laugh track.

In reality, it probably only takes a few minutes to get the machine whirring and the timer set on his phone, but it feels like at least an hour, his mind skimming over scenario after scenario of what someone might say if they saw him. The least embarrassing (and most frustrating) being if Shiro comes home from work early; they don’t sublet, but their apartments are right next to each other. All he’d have to do is look outside.

The most embarrassing possibility being the cute guy from the adjoining building deciding that now would be the perfect time to do his own laundry. Definitely not the ice breaker Keith is looking for. Not that he’s looking for one, really; he doesn’t even know if the guy is gay.

After making sure all of his detergents and dryer sheets are accounted for, Keith starts back for the apartment with a world weary sigh. This isn’t the first time he’s gotten tangled up in (obnoxious, tedious, frustrating) thoughts of his good looking neighbor, and it certainly won’t be the last. Doesn’t mean he feels any less like a closeted school boy with a crush about it. But what’s his Disaster Gay heart to do? The guy is lithe and sunkissed and has a smile that can only be described as radiant. Keith was doomed from the start.

With another sigh, and a groan for good measure, Keith adjusts his basket on his hip and silently curses the detergent thief who’s made bringing all his heavy laundry supplies with him back and forth a requirement. He’s got forty minutes before he needs to move the wash over to the dryer. Maybe he can get online and join Pidge for a raid or--

Keith stumbles, nearly dropping his laundry basket in attempt to regain balance. For a second, he assumes he’s just distracted enough to have caught a loose slab of cement, but as he makes to straighten, the cause of his near slip comes in the way of a sharp tug on the back of his onesie.

With ice in his veins and a brick in his stomach, Keith turns to look at the culprit, confused and mortified to find that a small child is currently yanking on his... tail.

“Marco, stop! Leave that girl alone!” A voice echoes from down the path between the apartment buildings, and as Keith reflexively glances away from the child to follow it, his heart stutters to a panicked halt.

It’s his neighbor. The hot one. And he’s currently sprinting in Keith’s direction, eyes not on Keith but on the child currently holding Keith’s (oh god why) _tail_ in a death grip. The little boy, Marco apparently, either doesn’t seem to notice, or doesn’t seem to care.

“Why are you dressed like a dinosaur?” He asks, giving the tail another brief tug as his eyes snap to Keith’s face.

Keith is torn between looking at the kid and looking at the approaching Hot Neighbor, unsure which is a less overwhelming situation. He settles on the kid.

“It’s… it’s supposed to be a dragon, I think?” Keith mumbles, trying to discreetly pull the tail out of Marco’s grip with the hand not currently preoccupied by his laundry basket. Maybe he can get far enough away before—

“If you’re a dragon, then where are your wings?”

The kid has a point, but Keith is too distracted to say so, because right at that moment, his neighbor, his Super Fucking Hot, tan skinned and currently shirtless neighbor is running up behind Marco and forcing his death grip to loosen around Keith’s tail.

“I’m so, so sorry, ma’am, I— uh.”

Hot Neighbor captures his eyes on a pregnant pause, does what’s probably an involuntary once over of Keith from tail to hood, and then settles his very surprised gaze on Keith’s noticeably masculine face.

“I mean...” He clears his throat and straightens, absentmindedly linking his hand with Marco’s though his attention stays pinned on Keith’s surely bright red face. “Sorry, sir? Or, um… Dude?”

Then, subtle enough that had Keith not been staring in mortification at his neighbor’s beautiful face he’d have missed it, full lips begin to quirk with the beginnings of amusement. And Keith dies on the spot, soul escaping the body anime style.

“I… It’s fine,” Keith hears himself mumble, suddenly staring at his own bare feet, head having fallen under the weight of his own mortification apparently. He wills those feet to move, to turn him around, to start running in the opposite direction, laundry be damned. They don’t listen. But then again, he doesn’t hear much beyond the thrumming in his ears, so they probably can’t hear much either. Also… feet don’t have ears. So.

As if seeming to finally realize how embarrassing this whole situation must be, his neighbor lets out a soft, almost apologetic laugh, shuffling closer, something Keith can only see because of the way tan, equally bare feet suddenly break into his line of sight.

Followed by sun kissed cheeks and ocean blue eyes that seem determined to follow Keith’s downward stare all the way under the hood of his onesie.

“Sorry you couldn’t make it back to your apartment incognito,” he says, and despite what should be rather condescending words, his smile is genuine. Which, for some reason has Keith straightening up in surprise. 

“I wasn’t--” Keith frowns, but Hot Neighbor just follows the motion with one of his own: the casual run of long fingers through short brown hair and a grin that stuns the words right out of him.

“Now, I’m not saying that you don’t look undeniably cute in the dragosaur onesie, but I have to ask. Is this a regular thing for you or just a special occasion?”

For a long moment (probably too long, to be honest) Keith just stares. Because what is he supposed to respond to first? The implication that he would wear such a ridiculous outfit on the regular? Or that Hot Neighbor just called him _cute_? 

Also, what the hell is a _dragosaur_?

None of that comes out of his mouth, however. Instead, all he manages to say is a perplexed and only partially stuttered, “I… Laundry day?”

“Ah.” Is the reply, followed by a knowing expression and a sage nod. “Been there.” Then, he follows it up with a friendly, “I’m Lance, by the way,” as if this isn’t the most ridiculous encounter Keith’s ever been a part of.

Still, the ease with which Hot Neighbor-- _Lance_ \--manages to direct the conversation away from the initial embarrassment actually manages to pull the tension from Keith’s shoulders. Enough so that he finds himself shaking his head in bemusement, running a hand through his hair on reflex even though it pushes the hood off his head and reveals the bed head he still hasn’t attempted to tame for the day. 

Lance either doesn’t seem to notice or chooses not to care, because instead of commenting, he simply leans in a fraction and mock whispers, “This is where you tell me your name.”

Keith blinks, taken aback, then somehow feels a huff of a laugh escape him of its own accord. “Keith,” he offers before his face can burn any brighter. The sound of his name makes Lance grin wider, if that’s possible.

“Nice to meet you, Dragosaur Keith.”

“What’s--?” Keith starts to ask, brow once again furrowed in confusion, but the both of them are distracted instantly by the way Marco groans and tugs fiercely on Lance’s arm.

“Tio Laaaaaaance,” he whines once both sets of eyes fall down a foot in surprise. “You said we’d go swimming.”

As if it’s something he’s done a million times, Lance falls swiftly to one knee, bringing himself eye level to the young boy. “I did, didn’t I?” He smiles, ruffling the kid’s hair. “Guess we should get to that then, huh?” Marco nods, face stern, and Keith can’t help the way that childlike seriousness makes him smile. He doesn’t know the last time he was that adamant about something as unremarkable as swimming. Hell, he didn’t even realize their apartment complex _had_ a pool.

When he shifts his gaze back to Lance, he’s already being stared at, a look in his eyes that has Keith flushing all over again.

“Wanna join us, Keith?” he asks from where he’s still perched in front of his nephew, and how is it possible for this guy to so easily leave him flustered beyond words? Because it takes way, way too long for him to clear his throat and look away from the adorable scene before him.

“My swim trunks are in the wash,” he says, looking steadfast towards the laundry room. He doesn’t have to explain that he’d used them as a pair of Last Resort Shorts a few days ago.

Lance is completely unphased. “We’ll be there for a couple of hours. You know, if you feel like dirtying them again once they’re clean.”

He shouldn’t, he really shouldn’t, but Keith looks back at Lance and instantly can’t find any possibility in the universe in which he declines that offer.

“Yeah, maybe,” Keith shrugs. But Lance must see right through him, because his grin is smug, eyes practically twinkling.

“I suppose I can work with a maybe.” Then, as if it’s perfectly natural for recently introduced strangers to do, Lance gets back to his feet and leans out to straighten the collar of Keith's onesie, giving it a gentle tug. “Soft,” he hums. “Comfy?”

Keith doesn’t know whether to nod or reply, but it doesn’t matter; Marco is suddenly pulling Lance away and towards where Keith assumes is the pool.

“Looks like that’s my cue,” Lance laughs, half turned towards Keith and half struggling to keep up with Marco. “Hopefully see you soon, Keith the Cute Dragosaur!”

Keith doesn’t know why he does it, probably because being around Lance like that has left him feeling a little delirious, but he’s suddenly calling out, “Wait! What’s a dragosaur?” 

Lance has to look over his shoulder to reply, considering how adamantly his nephew is pulling him along, but the wink he throws Keith doesn’t not go missed.

“It’s a compromise!”

Keith doesn’t get a chance to ask him to elaborate before Marco is pulling Lance around the corner and out of sight. But it also doesn’t take him long to figure it out.

Keith had thought it was a dragon onesie. Marco had though it was a dinosaur.

And Lance… Lance had thought he was _cute_.

Keith reaches into the pocket of his _dragosaur_ onesie and pulls out his phone. Twenty more minutes until his laundry needs to be moved from the washers to the dryers.

Surely no one will mind if his board shorts are a little damp.


End file.
